Women’s soccer clinches first win of conference play, defeats Sun Devils
Junior midfielder Viviana Villacorta scored her first goal of the season for No. 16 UCLA women’s soccer in its 4-1 win over Arizona State on the road Sunday. (Tanmay Shankar/Assistant Photo editor)
Women's Soccer
| No. 16 UCLA | 4 |
| Arizona State | 1 |
By Jacqueline Dzwonczyk
Oct. 7, 2019 12:47 a.m.
One, two, three, four – in just 50 minutes, the Bruins ran up the score.
After being shutout by Arizona (7-3-0, 1-2-0 Pac-12) and held to one penalty kick goal against California (9-3-0, 1-2-0), No. 16 UCLA women’s soccer (7-3-1, 1-2-0) found the back of the net again and again in its 4-1 win over Arizona State (6-4-2, 0-2-1) on Sunday, notching its first conference win of the year.
“We finished our chances and we got on the board early … it gives you a lot of good momentum,” said coach Amanda Cromwell. “Especially in the first half today, I thought we were very good – almost too much for them. They didn’t really have an answer for what we were doing.”
Junior midfielder Viviana Villacorta started the scoring early, notching her first goal of the season after just 1 minute, 12 seconds had ticked off the clock. Junior forward Kennedy Faulknor scored her second goal of the year in the eighth minute to double the Bruins’ lead.
“The past two games were not what we wanted, so we came out with this mentality of, ‘We can’t let this happen again,'” Villacorta said. “Scoring four goals was an amazing response to the last games.”
Redshirt senior forward Anika Rodriguez and freshman defender Brianne Riley made their first starts of the season, and the former set up the Bruins’ third goal.
An Arizona State defender fouled Rodriguez yards outside of the penalty box, and UCLA was awarded a free kick. Rodriguez stood up and quickly tapped the ball to junior forward Ashley Sanchez, who sent in a cross to junior defender Karina Rodriguez for her first goal of the year.
Karina Rodriguez had played outside back for the Bruins in every game this year, but moved up to the midfield Sunday as UCLA adjusted its lineup.
“We’re a deep team and we played a lot of players today,” Cromwell said. “More and more they keep stepping up – getting assists, scoring, helping defensively … We need to get goals from a lot of different players.”
It wasn’t just new players stepping up, however.
Sanchez – who leads the team with 13 points – had gone three games without a goal before Sunday. She scored the Bruins’ only goal of the second half when she carried the ball from midfield, beat two defenders with two touches and launched a shot from well outside the box.
“I always put pressure on myself to make an impact and help my team as much as I can,” Sanchez said. “Obviously that was in the back of my mind, but whether I (score) or I assist, that’s my job.”
In the 54th minute, Arizona State forward Marleen Schimmer landed a long shot to put the Sun Devils on the board, but the goal was the last of the match and wasn’t enough to outdo the Bruins’ four unanswered scores.
UCLA will be back at home competing against Colorado on Thursday.
